5:45pm

WVAS Local

WVAS Local News

By MelanieHogan

Investigators have recovered the flight recorders from the wreckage of a UPS jet that crashed at Birmingham's airport, killing two pilots. National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Eric Weiss says the devices were found but declined to elaborate. Investigators had been combing the tail section of the plane, which is where the recorders are usually located. The two devices could hold key evidence about what happened as the jet was attempting to land in Birmingham early Wednesday. The plane slammed into a hillside just short of the runway.

Guns in School

Montgomery Police are weighing the effects of the state's new gun law as the 2013-2014 school year draws near. Police Chief Kevin Murphy says the presence of school resource officers provided a proactive step to preventing incidents and will guard against gun violence in Montgomery Public Schools. Murphy says the rules prohibiting guns on school campuses have not changed.

Sentencing Guidelines

Prosecutors are opposed to new sentencing guidelines that will go into effect in Alabama in October. The Alabama District Attorneys Association says the guidelines, that apply to nonviolent offenders, will weaken their position in settling cases and will result in fewer offenders going to prison. The Alabama Sentencing Commission crafted the recommendations. Executive Director of the Commission Bennett Wright says nonviolent offenders will not avoid penalty. Wright says with the critically overcrowded conditions, the state has to be more selective in which perpetrators are placed in state prisons. He says Alabama's correctional facilities are at around 195 percent capacity.

Learning Through Art

The Montgomery Public School system is teaming up with the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts ahead of the upcoming school year to create an artist-in-residence program. Local artists will provide artistic training to teachers and students at Wares Ferry Road Elementary School once a week for the entire school year through the initiative, called learning through fine arts. An art exhibition is planned at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts to display the student's work at the end of the school year.